A now profitable Tesla motors hopes that a $49,900 Model S sedan will send its profit soaring to even greater heights.

The company is also launching the Roadster Sport model in 2011. (Source: Tesla Motors)

After years of losses, the company's persistence is finally paying off

Luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors
appears to be firing on all cylinders. Despite a painful couple
of years that saw the company cutting back to survive the recession,
the company emerged stronger than ever. Thanks to a new
partnership
with Daimler, additional engineering, distribution, and marketing
resources were gained. And most importantly, Tesla finally
began to deliver
vehicles.

Now the company can celebrate an important
milestone -- its first
profit. After many months in the red, July saw the company
in the black, making $1M USD in profit on $20M USD in revenue.
The profits came thanks to a record 109 cars shipped in the month.
Manufacturing cost cuts also helped to enable the profit.

Tesla
Chief Executive Elon Musk comments, "There is strong demand for
a car that is unique in offering high performance with a clean
conscience. Customers know that in buying the Roadster they are
helping fund development of our mass market electric cars."

Tesla,
like many R&D driven greentech firms, offered a target date for
profitability. However, it appears that Tesla is one of the few
to actually deliver on such a date -- having projected
a profit in "mid-2009".

The Tesla Roadster
undeniably features the most attractive production electric vehicle
body design to date. They also offer fittingly sporty
performance and a utilitarian 244-mile range. In other words,
while expensive, the Roadsters do deliver a strong experience.
Currently, the Roadsters retail for a base price of $109,000.

Tesla
has borrowed
$465M USD from the U.S. Department of Energy, to produce a luxury
sedan reachable by more customers at a price point of $49,900.
This new model will be called the Model
S.

The company is also working with Daimler to create
electric versions of the popular Smart car. Late this year, the
company will deploy a fleet of the 1,000 of the electrified
ultra-compact vehicles. Tesla is also set to deploy a
higher-performance version of the Roadster -- the Roadster Sport --
in 2011.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates